PhD Student Blog from the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading

Talks

The Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group (VMSG) held a conference from the 3-6th of January in Leeds. The Centre for Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET) held a student conference from 8-9th January in Cambridge. It was a conference double-whammy about all things volcanic – heaven!

VMSG is a joint special interest group of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the Geological Society of London. The VMSG conference is a fairly small affair, with about 200 in attendance, and it brings together research in geochemistry, seismology, volcanology and related fields. Because of its size, it’s a nice informal space where there is a focus on students presenting their work to the VMSG community, but anyone is free to present their research.

Talks ranged from how tiny fossils, called diatoms, became trapped in a pyroclastic density current, to modelling of lava domes, to how local people interact with the volcano they live on at Masaya, to every aspect of volcanology you can think of. The final talk was definitely a highlight – with everyone in 3D glasses to look at volcanic plumes across Russia, it really brought the satellite images to life (and we got to keep the glasses).

90 posters on a variety of topics were presented, the majority of which were by students (I was one of them). There was of course an obligatory dinner and disco to round off the second day of talks, and a great chance to network with other people from VMSG.

For the best poster title of the conference, you need look no further than this gem.

The conference also provides workshops on different aspects of research, with sessions on writing papers, diffusion modelling and InSAR to name a few. These were hosted on the 6th at the University of Leeds Environment and Earth Sciences Department, and comprised a full day of talks and labs so you could get to grips with the techniques you were being shown. I attended the InSAR workshop, which gave a good introduction to the topic of comparing two satellite images and seeing where the ground had moved. There was also a session on deformation modelling in the afternoon and playing with bits of code.

Then it was onto the second leg of the conferences, which took the action to Cambridge, where students that are part of COMET met up to discuss work and attend talks from 8-9th January.

Gneiss weather in Cambridge!

COMET is a National Environment Research Council Centre of Excellence, it comprises a group of researchers that uses remote and ground sensed data and models to study earthquakes and volcanoes. They also work with the British Geological Survey and the European Space Agency, and fund PhD projects in related fields.

The meet-up of students comprised two days of talks from students, with some keynote speakers who had been past members of COMET that had gone on to careers outside of academia. The talks from second and third years included: remote sensing and InSAR being used to examine tectonic strain in the East African Rift Valley and slip (movement) rates along faults in Tibet, modelling how gas bubbles in magma change the more crystals you add to the magma, and using cosmogenic isotopes to work out slip rates on a fault in Italy.

The Department had cabinets and cabinets of samples that rocked.

First years are also given the chance to give a talk lasting 5 minutes, so I filled people in on what I’d been up to in the past four months – lots of data collection! My project will be using satellite data to look at the varied eruption behaviour of Bagana volcano in Papua New Guinea, with a view to modelling this behaviour to better understand what causes it. Bagana has a tendency to send out thick lava flows in long pulses and let out lots of gas, and occasionally then violently erupt and let out lots of ash and hot pyroclastic density currents. But it is very understudied, as it is so remote – so there’s lots still to be learnt about it!

Me with my poster (I’ve run out of geology puns).

The meet-up also included a fancy meal in Pembroke College’s Old Library, with candles and it felt a bit like being at Hogwarts! Then it was back to Reading, thoroughly worn out, but with lots of ideas and many useful contacts – VMSG2019 is in St. Andrews and I can’t wait.

“Quo Vadis”, Latin for “where are you going?”, is an annual event held in the Department of Meteorology in which 2nd year PhD students present their work as if they were in an international conference. In addition to providing the opportunity for students to present their research in a professional yet friendly environment, Quo Vadis has an emphasis on where on-going research is heading (as its name suggests). Over the years presenters have always walked away with constructive feedback on their presentation style and scientific work, and occasionally, a new collaboration with someone in the audience!

This year’s Quo Vadis was held on 1st February, 2017. 26 excellent talks covering a wide range of meteorology-related topics were delivered by PhD students in their 2nd year in the one-day event. A full schedule of the event can be found here. The morning sessions covered topics such as Atmospheric Dynamics, Tropical Meteorology and Space Weather, whereas the afternoon sessions focused on Oceanography, Climate Change, Urban Meteorology and Data Assimilation.

Every year a winning talk is selected based on criteria including knowledge of the subject, methods and innovativeness, results, presentation style and ability to answer questions. This has always been a tough job for the evaluation committee formed by staff members, as our students tend to be very good at presenting their cutting edge research!

A large audience listening to a Quo Vadis talk

PhD tutor Clare Watt presenting the prize to winner Christoph Kent

This year’s Quo Vadis winner is Christoph Kent. He gave an excellent presentation on representing surface roughness in urban areas to determine the vertical wind profile above the surface. Understanding wind in urban areas is essential to stakeholders in sectors such as renewable energy, construction and many more. In addition to the winner, 3 honourable mentions were made. They went to Jonathan Beverley, Thomas Eldridge and Elizabeth Cooper, whose talks were about the influence of Asian summer monsoon on European summer weather, the use of the Temperature Humidity Infrared Radiometer, and the use of data assimilation to improve flood prediction, respectively.

Jonathan Beverley

Thomas Eldridge

Elizabeth Cooper

At the end of the event a buffet was served to thank all our speakers and the evaluation committee, congratulate the well-deserved winner and honourable mentions, as well as to celebrate research excellence of the Department of Meteorology. Quo Vadis 2017 was a huge success, you can find out more about the event on our Twitter account @SocialMetwork, or under the hashtag #QuoVadis2017.

Imagine you’re creating a problem that we don’t understand. A problem where the majority of people just go, “meh, not important, I don’t really get it”.

What would it look like?

It would be complex, uncertain, something in the future and possibly an issue that was geographically distant.

Now those factors should you remind of climate change, and on 5th October 2016 the South-East Royal Meteorological Society local centre hosted a meeting where a panel of experts were presented with the question, “What will make the public and politicians take climate change seriously?”

The panel included professionals from a range of backgrounds including Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, leading expert in meteorology and climate, and first director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London. Dr Rachel McCloy a well-respected figure in behavioural science with experience in policy making in the former Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Treasury. Finally, Paul Simons a prominent journalist for the Times known for the depth of scientific understanding in his articles.

Images taken during the RMetS South East local centre meeting (06/10/16). Left image: Panelists (from left to right) including Dr Rachel McCloy, Sir Brian Hoskins and Paul Simons.

Sir Brian Hoskins opened the discussion with the challenge that we have a responsibility to “encourage” rather than “make” the public take climate change seriously, and recognised the progress in politics including targets announced in COP21, Paris and the UK Climate Change Act 2008. However, it was also recognised that climate change may not be prioritised high enough in political agendas, and the question was raised on whether governments take their environmental global responsibility seriously enough?

Discussion then moved onto personal actions each one of us can take to increase the public response. Repeating the “doom and gloom” message over climate change can become boring and repetitive, and we need to bring a positive message to tackling this global issue. We also need to recognise the responsibility of the individual in a global context and introduce small steps that can be taken to reduce our environmental impact.

One key message from Brian’s talk, and the meeting as whole, was that it’s currently hard for a member of the public to understand what climate change actually means to their daily lives. What impact will a 2°C global temperature rise actually cause? Researchers, the media and policymakers need to relate the science of global warming to our everyday lives, whether that’s through health, nutrition, the working environment, or air quality to name a few.

Our second speaker, Dr Rachel McCloy, introduced psychological behavioural frameworks that are introduced by climate change and how they impact the progression towards successful mitigation. For example, emotional reactions towards climate change can include dread and injustice, and this combined with typical adjectives used to describe the environmental changes including “natural” and “uncontrollable”, can lead to an increased likelihood of no effort being taken at all against climate change.

A component of Rachel’s talk I found particularly interesting was the impact of over-congratulating individuals and societies for taking “baby steps”. When we congratulate or applaud an action too much it reduces the likelihood of an even better action taking place. Therefore, as a society, we need to keep looking at the next step to mitigating against climate change. If we think about this in the present day, could we agree that we congratulated the agreements met in COP21 Paris too much, and as a result the likelihood of ratification and progress being made has been dropped. We as a community need to hold each other to account even when those “baby steps” have been made.

And finally, Paul, a leading science journalist for The Times, brought to the discussion how the media can be used to encourage climate change to be taken seriously. Everything in the media is a story and when a phenomena such climate change impacts health, water or even transportation it can gain a public interest. To increase the media’s attention to climate change, greater emphasis is needed on how environmental changes will impact our daily lives. Paul also reminded us that the public have begun to associate extreme weather events to climate change, whether proven to be a result of anthropogenic action or not. A recent example that comes to my mind is the recent European thunderstorms that occurred last summer. The media should be used to successfully “shape opinions” and it is up to us to grasp the opportunities that they have to offer.

After an intriguing set of three short talks to answer the question “What will make the public and politicians take climate change seriously?”, discussion was opened to the audience. Questions included: What is the importance of education to solving climate change? How much advocacy work should a climate scientist get involved in? The meeting as a whole stimulated a continued discussion on how climate change can be communicated effectively to “encourage” the public and politicians to take climate change seriously.

I would like to thank all three panellists for a set of thought-provoking and challenging talks. Thank you to the Royal Meteorological Society for supporting the local centre event, and to find out more about meetings taking place in your region check out https://www.rmets.org/events/forthcoming-meetings.